


Fealty

by mightbeanasshole



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, F/F, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, LOOSELY based on the Kings AU trope, M/M, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-16 11:15:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4623252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightbeanasshole/pseuds/mightbeanasshole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The clairvoyant beyond the borders of Laurus--beyond any ruler’s reach--is the only one watching Mogar as he moves that night. Touching the boy-warrior’s thoughts. Knowing beyond understanding, beyond fact, that Mogar will become Michael: the cleat that will split a rotten kingdom apart before mending it. Before joining with another to become the keystone of a new era." <br/>(relationship tags updated as they appear in the story)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. PROLOGUE

 

* * *

 

Mogar first arrives in Domus--Jack’s hearth--in the ninth month of the tenth year since Ramsey’s Great Siege.

There are no sentinels at the coast. Even if there were, the guards of the hearths are grown lazy with a decade of inaction, and in the depth of the night they wouldn’t have bothered to notice one fleet-footed boy, anyway.

Later when bards the world over tell his story, all will insist that Mogar slipped through the borders of Domus and into the city of Laurus as powerful and invisible as a deep ocean current.

The inaccuracy will be folded into the myth of Mogar--a theme as strong as any fact.

(“The invisible boy-warrior who came from nowhere to save a people” sounded better, of course, than “the young man who traveled overland by foot and was spotted by two almost-dozing cowherds and an unnaturally alert hotelier on his way to the gerent’s keep.”

Bards do like to keep things poetic, after all.)

* * *

 

 

**THE HISTORY OF DENTES GALLUS**  
 **OLD ERA: KINGDOM OF DENTES GALLUS**  
 **0 H.D.–640 H.D./0 A.S.**

  * 0 H.D. - The line of Hullum kings begins. The kingdom’s scribes have no record before this first dawn.

  * 243 H.D. - Missionaries for the Chosen Ones of the World arrive on the continent. Promising that all people will reach a peaceful and bountiful afterlife, the missionaries’ religion spreads quickly throughout Dentes Gallus. This marks the beginning of the decline of magic use in the kingdom.

  * 594 H.D. - Hullum IX is born.

  * 605 H.D. - Hullum VIII dies.

    * Hullum IX ascends to the throne to take power over the kingdom of Dentes Gallus.

  * 614 H.D. - Geoff Ramsey is born.

  * 618 H.D. - Jack Pattillo is born.

  * 626 H.D. - Magic users throughout the kingdom are summoned to the king’s compound in secret and tried for crimes against the Chosen Ones of the World. All are found guilty, and presented with the choice between joining the king’s new army or death.

  * 628 H.D. - All odd numbered children under 18 are summoned to the king’s compound to join the king’s new army. In the time after Ramsey’s Great Siege, the event is known as The Razing.

  * 632 H.D. - The lords of Dentes Gallus meet in secret in the First Assembly.

    * Ramsey's Great Siege begins. At the time, the war is known simply as “the rebellion.”

  * 640 H.D. - Hullum IX is defeated and his tower is dismantled. The reign of kings ends.




**NEW ERA: NEW FEDERATION OF DENTES GALLUS**  
 **0 A.S.–PRESENT DAY (10 A.S.)**

  * 641 H.D. / 0 A.S. - The generals of Ramsey’s Great Siege and lords of Dentes Gallus meet at the Second Assembly.

    * The New Federation of Dentes Gallus is divided into six large states called “hearths” and distributed to new leaders--some lords, some generals. Hearths are given to General Jack Pattillo (Hearth of Domus), General Lindsay Tuggey (Hearth of Iset), Lord Gus Sorola (Hearth of Cirr), Lord Joel Heyman (Hearth of Kinpast), Lord Kdin Jenzen (Hearth of Alatur), and Lord Maxwell Turney (Hearth of Novi)

    * The name Ramsey’s Great Siege is coined and officially adopted by the new federation’s scribes to describe the war. The new leaders of the new hearths vote to end the epoch of Hullum’s Dynasty (H.D.) and assign the scribes a new epoch: After Siege (A.S.).

    * Capital City is established at the point where the four central hearths meet. A golden tower monument is erected at the former site of Hullum’s tower.

  * 2 A.S. - Maxwell Turney, lord of the hearth of Novi, falls ill and dies.

    * Meg Turney inherits leadership of the hearth of Novi from her father

  * 8 A.S. - Jack marries Caiti, scholar and diplomat from the neighboring kingdom of Accola

  * 10 A.S. - Mogar arrives in the hearth of Domus


  
---  
  
 

* * *

The years after The Razing and Ramsey’s Great Siege leave a culture of people as deeply scarred as the battlefield landscape.

No person is without nightmares in Dentes Gallus, even a decade after the end of the reign of kings. Even after years of peace.

Ray, tucked in his hermitage, dreams of the trials--the time when the few like him who still practiced the old ways were dragged from their homes and into the king’s compound. He dreams of being marched before a king’s judge and convicted of crimes against the Chosen Ones of the World. He dreams of his sentencing: join the king’s new army or perish.

Ray dreams of his struggle and escape, the sounds of the others as they accept their fate, the faces of those few who betrayed the old ways and were cloaked in riches by a smiling king. He dreams of his weakened bid for freedom into the wild.

Ray wakes in daylight in the forest and there is nothing to dull the memory.

Jack, safe in his keep, dreams of the The Razing--of that sunny day in summer when they all lined the city square. He dreams of his eldest brother and middle sister smiling and waving goodbye to him. He dreams of his ten-year-old self, trying to be brave, wishing in his heart that he had been born third instead of fourth so that he go on the great adventure to the king’s compound.

Jack dreams of Geoff, too old to be crying at 14 but the only one of them who did. He dreams of Geoff weeping, shouting about how it wasn’t right to tear every family apart, trying to fight out of his father’s grip as he watches four of his brothers depart. He dreams of Geoff when the carts are far out of sight, the way the teenager had turned his face on the rest of his city with disgust--and the image haunts Jack more than any of his worst war-torn nightmares. Geoff had been right and they had all been blind.

Jack wakes in firelight in his keep and holds Caiti to his chest. She wakes and always knows.

And Geoff, haunting the barracks instead of his own keep, dreams of war.

Always war. Not a “great siege,” not a “rebellion.” Geoff dreams of the sick reality of brothers and sisters fighting their kin. He dreams of the smell of his own blood. He dreams of the look in the foreign eyes of his youngest brother before the boy had bludgeoned Geoff.

Geoff dreams of running his youngest living brother through with a dagger before losing consciousness.

Geoff wakes at whatever hard and unlikely spot that he’d found sleep in, and goes to search out a bladder of rotgut.

\---

But the nightmares come fewer and farther in between for the people of Jack’s hearth.

The state has prospered under the gerent--a title Jack fashioned for himself, since he is not a king nor a lord and never felt like a general, despite earning the title many times over during Ramsey’s Great Siege. Jack has softened every hard rule of the king, and where the common man had found a life of toil for simple survival with Hullum, he finds earnest hard work met with earnest reward under Jack.

Jack--who had risen from ore miner stock, the man who had directed Ramsey’s armies to victory, the man who had survived eight years of hard warfare--wants and has a simple life now. And the people in Laurus, the city where Jack had made his capital, had quickly became accustomed to the sight of their general, their gerent swinging a hammer with his subjects.

Jack dislikes the nickname he had earned in the early years--the “Carpenter King”--but enjoys building and mending too much to break his habits.

And unlike the other five leaders of the hearths, Jack has ventured beyond the borders of Dentes Gallus into the neighboring kingdom of Accola, his life-long curiosity overcoming longstanding Gallan xenophobia. He’d learned from the Accolan king, been welcomed into court, been offered a princess in marriage to forge a bond between Accola and Jack’s own state.

But Jack had already met the diplomat and scholar, Caiti, who would become his wife and regent. He was not interested in a political marriage, and politely declined the offer from the Accolan king.

Geoff had warned against war, had pushed for the more favorable union. Jack was set on his commoner wife. They married in a meadow near Laurus in 8 A.S. after a long courtship--a simple ceremony with only the basic traditions honored, as dictated by the Chosen Ones of the World.

Geoff had been wrong. The marriage had only solidified Jack’s status as a folk hero: the fair, gentle ruler who married for love, who wanted knowledge and peace and prosperity for his people.

Geoff can’t argue with the perception, even now. Jack is and always has been the best good Geoff has known.

\---

Five days after Mogar arrives in the city of Laurus, the seat of the hearth is quiet at midnight.

Jack and the regent Caiti have retired, too awake to sleep but too drowsy to remain in the hall with their court. Caiti unshutters a window to let in crisp air while Jack retrieves an aperitif and lowers the metal cask gently into the coals of their chamber’s fireplace to heat the liquid.

A warm and soothing drink for a chilled night. They need it often to gain sleep--or else they speak in hushed tones about all of the solutions to all of the problems beyond the borders of the city Laurus, the hearth Domus--of how to approach the problems of the entire New Federation of Dentes Gallus and beyond, until the sky goes rosy with dawn and they are both too exhausted to set about solving those problems, chasing those lofty goals.

On the other side of the heavy door, Geoff swigs cold rotgut from a leather bladder, knowing it does nothing to dull the sharp parts of him. The other guards are sleeping--and let them. Their chatter had left him wishing he were deaf in _both_ ears, and now the night is still.

Somewhere in the barracks many flights below, the lieutenant Gavin snores softly, dreaming of flying, of glaciers.

-

The clairvoyant beyond the borders of Laurus--beyond any ruler’s reach--is the only one watching Mogar as he moves that night. Touching the boy-warrior’s thoughts. Knowing beyond understanding, beyond fact, that Mogar will become Michael: the cleat that will split a rotten kingdom apart before mending it. Before joining with another to become the keystone of a new era.

Ray pushes hair from his face and tries to close his mind’s eye. He has work to do here in reality, and there will be time for Mogar, Michael--for the rest of this festering mess in the future.

When they need him, Ray thinks, they can come and find him in his hermitage.

 _For now, leave me alone,_ he thinks, shrouding the revelations in his mind like one drapes a cloak over the cage of a noisy parrot.

-

It only takes a handful of minutes for the boy-warrior Mogar to infiltrate the gerent’s keep.

 

 


	2. ARRIVAL

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caiti doesn’t see the man until he already has a knife at her husband’s throat.

And then time stretches out impossibly for the regent--many things happening all at once and yet as slow as a scene playing out underwater.

The smile disappears from Jack’s face as the gerent goes still. Caiti knows that he can feel the blade against a bare patch of his neck, under the generous beard. _The blade must be cold,_ Caiti thinks in an odd moment of serenity.

Jack and Caiti have both dropped their drinks to the wooden floor and one tin cup has come to rest against Caiti’s bare foot.

Dancing patterns from the fire paint Jack’s face--and the face of his assailant.

Jack’s hazel eyes never leave Caiti’s. The man behind her husband is hooded and pale with a heavy brow, dark eyes, a broad nose.

It is only when Jack opens his mouth to speak that Caiti realizes she is screaming--and only then because the regent had realized suddenly that her lungs are empty and she is out of breath.

“Steady,” Jack says to her, a single ruddy eyebrow raised. His voice is as calm as she’s ever heard it, and it is moments like these when Caiti remembers the years of war he has seen, how many people have wanted her husband dead in his lifetime, the fact that the hands that hold her--that built their keep--are the same hands that had ended lives without hesitation in the years before they met.

Geoff throws open the heavy door to their chamber with a shout. Time suddenly catches up to the occupants of the room.

Caiti realizes that the stranger--the man with a knife to Jack’s throat--is speaking to _her_ in a language she recognizes.

\---

Caiti’s scream ignites something in Geoff, and the scene in Jack’s chamber adds more fuel. Geoff’s blood roars at the sight that meets him--and for a moment it’s almost difficult to see or hear anything as Geoff tucks his head and draws his own dagger, striding without hesitation towards the intruder.

The stranger is slight and wears a heavy hood. Some piece of Geoff’s brain knows that they might have other weapons. Most of him doesn’t care.

Caiti’s face is distorted in a grimace as she looks from the stranger to Geoff, and she holds a palm up, rising from her chair as if to stop Geoff. The intruder turns, sees Geoff, and steps away from the gerent.

The figure--just a boy, Geoff realizes now--stands and holds his hands up and away from his body, revealing an empty palm and the short dagger, flipped out now and held flat against his palm. He steps back from Jack to face Geoff, speaking quickly and clearly, but the words sound like nonsense and Geoff can’t decide if it’s a trick of his ear or if the boy is speaking another language. The boy’s quick-moving lips moving make no sense to him.

It doesn’t matter. Only a few more words slip out of the stranger’s mouth before Geoff is shouldering him, walking him roughly backwards to press him against a wall until he’s knocking the breath from the stranger’s chest. It does nothing to damper his rage.

Geoff hears the clatter of the boy’s dagger on the floor as he pins the stranger’s free arm to the wall with his shoulder, grinding bone against bone.

One hand presses his own weapon against the boy’s throat as Geoff’s free hand pats his torso, then his hips--reaching for hidden weapons and finding them. He tosses another knife to the cold floor.

Caiti and Jack are saying something to him now but Geoff ignores them. He can hear the other two from the cadre who were standing guard with him enter now.

“He’s got more weapons,” Geoff says to the men at his back. “Check everywhere I can’t reach. He’s bound to have more.”

One of his soldiers steps forward--too slow, too damned slow, Geoff thinks--and begins to search the bottom half of the stranger for weapons.

“Jack--he’s speaking Avosa,” Caiti says.

“And?” Jack asks.

“There’s no--Nobody speaks Avosa,” Caiti says. “It’s a dead language.”

“Fitting. A dead language for a dead boy,” Geoff snarls, finally looking into the stranger’s face. His hood has fallen away to reveal a head of matted dark hair and a face smeared with dirt. The boy is smiling warmly at Geoff, as if Geoff were a wayward relative come home after a long absence.

It only makes Geoff press the blade harder against his throat.

“Geoff,” Jack says, caution in his voice.

Geoff hears another weapon clatter to the floor as the second soldier searches the stranger.

“That’s all, Ramsey,” the soldier says, stepping back. “He’s clean now.”

“You checked his shoes?” Geoff asks. And then, to the boy: “You speak English? Kick off your shoes, damn you.”

“I speak English, Geoff Ramsey,” the boy says, the words halting but unaccented. His eyes are dancing--as if revealing Geoff’s own name to him were some great amusement. H _e must be mad_ , Geoff thinks to himself.

He can feel the boy obeying his command, moving out of his own shoes and kicking each one into the chamber. There is the sound of two more weapons. One of the soldiers sighs audibly.

“Nice work as always,” Geoff says sarcastically to the men behind him. Even with endless training, his guards neglect the basics.

Caiti says something in a language Geoff doesn’t know. The boy begins to respond immediately, speaking back in the same language, but his brown eyes never leave Geoff’s.

“He has nothing else on him, Geoff,” Caiti says, the panic edging out of her voice. “You can let him down.”

Geoff lets his blade drop from the stranger’s throat, but he does not stop grinding his shoulder into the boy.

“Who are you?” Jack asks the stranger. “How did you get in here?”

\---

Caiti’s mind works quickly to try and piece together the puzzle.

“My queen,” the stranger says, his brow furrowing as he looks past Geoff and towards her. “Please…”

Once he has her attention, the stranger begins speaking Avosa again, the words slow and steady but still too fast, too foreign for her to stitch together all the meanings.

“What the devil is he saying, Caiti?” Geoff demands, speaking over the other man. Geoff pushes his shoulder into the man once again and Caiti can hear the stranger’s voice drop as he fights another wave of pain.

“Please, Geoff--let him down,” Caiti says, shaking her head. She needs quiet--she needs a moment to remember how the hell Avosa grammar works. The stranger has stopped talking and he looks out from his uncomfortable position against the wall to regard her and Jack.

“With respect, my regent,” Geoff says, sounding none too respectful in reality, “he made an attempt on Jack’s life and--”

“Geoff,” Jack says, gently. “Just let him speak to her.”

“No,” Geoff says. Caiti has never heard the man like this, half-crazed and defiant. “We have a dungeon, do we not?”

“Geoff, we haven’t--” Jack cuts in.

“One of you search down the keys to the damned thing,” Geoff orders. The men at his back begin moving immediately. And then to Caiti: “If you _must_ talk to this madman, I’ll feel better if he’s firmly behind iron bars.”  

The stranger has understood Geoff’s words. He gives Caiti a firm nod and does not attempt to speak again.

\---

Geoff leaves only long enough to see the stranger locked into a cell, and he’s back to Jack’s chamber before he and Caiti have even begun to talk. There are more soldiers at Geoff’s side when he returns, obviously roused from sleep and quickly dressed. Geoff enters the chamber alone for the second time since midnight, closing the door behind him.

“Geoff, can you take me down there?” Caiti asks, breathless. Jack slings a look at his wife and can’t help but puff a laugh when he realizes she’s struggling to lace a pair of breeches under her dressing gown.

“Tonight?” Geoff asks.

Her hands are flying at fastenings and she doesn’t look up.

“Yes, tonight,” she says.

“Caiti, there’s nothing that can’t wait for morning,” Jack begins.

“You should both sleep,” Geoff says.

“To hell with you two, then,” Caiti says. “I can find my own way to the dungeon.”

And then to Jack: “A shirt, please.”

Jack simply raises an eyebrow.

“None of mine are clean--I’ll need to borrow a shirt.”

“Caiti--” they both begin to say.

“I’ll go bare-breasted if you both insist on being simple,” she threatens.

Jack relents now, knowing that they’ll accomplish nothing by trying to put her off the desire to visit their new prisoner. He finds one of his own soft shirts in a wardrobe and tosses it to her. She’s already unlacing her dressing gown.

“Behind the screen, if you don’t mind?” Jack suggests. She glares at him but does manage to step behind a dressing screen before completely disrobing.

“Did he say anything else?” Jack asks, turning to Geoff.

“Not a word in English or tongues,” Geoff says.

“He wasn’t speaking in tongues,” Caiti says from behind the screen, her voice muffled by fabric. “I told you, it’s Avosa. I’ve only ever seen it written but he was definitely speaking Avosa.”

“Well he’s not speaking anything at the moment,” Geoff says.

Caiti steps out from behind the screen, Jack’s shirt hanging open at the neck. There is far too much fabric for her small frame and the garment billows where she’s tucked it into her neat breeches.

“You could tell what he was saying?” Jack asks her.

“Some of it--I don’t know,” Caiti says. Her fingers are working through her hair now, knotting it up and away from her face. “It’s all pronounced different than I thought, and I lost a lot of it. He seems to know who we three are, though. Called us by name.”

“Yes, and what about us?” Jack asks.

“He called you his king, me his queen, and you,” she says, turning now to Geoff, “his _master_ , I think. Also I might be mistaken but he was saying something that sounded an awful lot like an oath of loyalty to us.”

“If Jack is his king, the boy ought to know that the punishment for an attempted assassination is death,” Geoff says, dry. Caiti frowns at him.

“There’s no such law,” Jack says, “and I’m no one’s king.”

“He wasn’t trying to kill Jack at all,” Caiti insists.

“Then the business with the knife at Jack’s throat was… what exactly?” Geoff asks.

Jack watches as his oldest friend glowers at his wife.

“I don’t know,” Caiti says. “It clearly wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Surely,” Geoff says, sarcastic. “And when I had the boy against that wall, we were preparing to waltz.”

“I’ll tell you what he was doing after I speak to him,” Caiti says firmly. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Jack watches Caiti as her spine straightens. She breathes deeply and exits the room, leaving the two of them alone.

“You want me to accompany her?” Geoff asks.

“Don’t bother,” Jack says. “If that man is secure in the cell, she’ll need no further help.”

Jack moves to retrieve the cups that had fallen in front of the fire just a few minutes before. He wipes them both before pouring more of the spirit from a decanter, not bothering to warm it this time. Though he offers none to Geoff, the man joins him, dark-patterned hands on the empty tin cup. Geoff splashes the spirit into the cup and takes a long draw.

“You’re alright, Jack?”

“Of course,” Jack says. “Thanks to you. Glad to see time and rotgut do nothing to dull your instincts.”

Geoff gives a dry laugh.

“They do nothing to dull anything, Jack.”

“That why you were on guard, then?” Jack asks. Geoff nods. The two of them sink into the chairs by the dying fire, and Jack eyes his friend.

As commander of a small cadre of soldiers, Geoff never pulls a formal guard shift at Jack’s door. But when Geoff’s nightmares plague him, he often finds his way there anyway--at least, that was his default haunt since he’d stopped finding his way to his own lieutenant’s bed a year ago.

Jack still doesn’t know what was behind the dissolved relationship between Geoff and Gavin, and the commander had neatly sidestepped each of Jack’s questions about it. There was never even an official end--just the reappearance of Geoff, half-drunk and weary at Jack’s chamber door.

Jack had almost found it absurd, Geoff’s insistence on two guards at his door each night, even after a decade of peace. Geoff’s own cadre was known to snicker about it out of their commander’s limited earshot, too, but most were content to have a job that kept them indoors on cold nights.

If Geoff had needed justification in his vigilance, he had certainly received it tonight.

“Why didn’t he kill me, you think?” Jack asks, realizing how odd the sentence sounds coming so casually from his mouth.

“He’s mad, Jack,” Geoff says. “You heard what Caiti said--he thinks you two are king and queen. Just because he knows some language from a book doesn’t mean he’s not a lunatic.”

Jack works heavy fingers through his beard.

“I certainly didn’t recognize him,” Jack says. “And he didn’t look Accolan.”

“He’s an outcast from another Gallan hearth I’m sure,” Geoff says.

“How so sure?”

“What, you think a foreigner came all the way to our coast from the Plains?” Geoff asks, arching an eyebrow and emptying his cup. “Or--what, from the north through Cirr?”

“Not the Plains--Tuggey would never let him cross Iset,” Jack says.

“He’s an idiot child from another hearth,” Geoff insists, stating it as fact in a tone that indicates this is the last discussion he’ll hear of it.

After a pause, Geoff stands to take more of the spirit, and Jack watches as his hip hitches in a subtle but familiar limp. Jack feels enormously tired at the sight.

“That battle feeling wearing off?” Jack asks. His friend sighs, meeting his eyes.

“You felt it too, then?” Geoff asks.

“Hm,” Jack says, nodding. “Felt good for a moment. Life or death with the rest of the world far away.”

“Alive and unburdened,” Geoff agrees. “I wish to god we hadn’t been born for war, my friend. Didn’t know I wanted to feel that again... until I did.”

It’s not a pleasant confession, Jack thinks. Yet Jack feels the same. Ten years of peace, of thinking that part of him had died--had been replaced with the gentle and even-tempered gerent Jack, the husband Jack--to only have that dormant piece of himself--Jack the soldier, Jack the warrior--come roaring back.

When Geoff returns to the fire with his cup full again, he looks older than his 37 years. His age doesn’t show in the full head of dark, wild hair or in the enchanted marks that snake down his arms and fingers, still bold and sharp as the day he’d received them. It shows instead in the bent slump of his spine as he curls around the drink, in the lingering close of lids over light, deep-set eyes, in the way Geoff tilts his head towards him when Jack speaks--as if positioning his mangled ear just so would suddenly return its ability to hear.

“You should find your way to your own keep sometimes, Geoff,” Jack says, gently. Geoff’s eyes jump up to him.

“I’ll leave you be as soon as Caiti returns,” Geoff says.

“Kicking you out isn’t my aim,” Jack says. “You are my family. But I’ve no bed to offer you as soft as what I’m sure awaits you back at home.”

Geoff chuckles, less dry now. Less irony there.

“I might need a map to locate it,” Geoff says. “It’s been so long since I’ve slept there, I barely imagine I’ll remember what it looks like.”

Geoff’s keep sits on the edge of the city of Laurus, but it’s only a quick walk there from Jack’s home and the barracks. It seemed like having his own keep was a mere formality for Geoff--something he did to dissuade Jack from complaining about Geoff’s lack of home within hearth--and the man only spent time there to work on his maps.

“Perhaps you should reacquaint yourself with your bed then,” Jack says. “I’m sure it misses you.”

“I’m afraid I won’t sleep much tonight,” Geoff says. “But I’ll keep it in mind.”

They sit in comfortable and familiar silence, then. Waiting for Caiti to return.

\---

One of the guards had pointed Caiti in the direction of the dungeon.

“Dungeon” felt like an exaggeration. It was a fortified room with two cells, half-forgotten in the basement of one of the buildings in Jack’s keep--but still, there was presently no better word than “dungeon” for a place to hold people against their will. Caiti had never had occasion to visit, as crime in the hearth of Domus was rare and incarceration even rarer.

The stone-lined room is cold when Caiti arrives.

“Has he said anything?” she asks one of the guards.

“No, my regent.”

“Please, would you fetch--or send someone to fetch--a sleeping roll from the barracks. Some blankets…” Caiti says. She turns to the figure in the cell. “Are you hungry?”

He shakes his head, no--but she realizes as soon as she asks that she doesn’t care.

“And some of whatever you can find hot in the kitchen,” Caiti says.

“Kitchen’s been cold for hours,” the guard says, not unkind.

“Some hard cheese and a roll then--whatever is there,” she says.

Caiti expects to be met with resistance after butting heads with Geoff, but the guard seems unbothered by her request that they make the prisoner more comfortable. He nods and strides away to gather what she has asked after.

When she turns back to the cell, the man has stepped closer to the bars and he stands casually, watching her. He had been listening, and must have understood.

“My queen,” he says. “Thank you.”

“I’m not a queen,” she says. Caiti steps closer to the bars but stays out of arm’s reach. “And you already know my name. Please, call me that if you don’t mind.”

“Yes, Caiti Ward,” he says.

“Just Caiti, please. And what shall I call you?”

“Your servant,” he says. His words are clear but have a strange cadence.

“I presume you have a name as well?” Caiti asks. “I’d prefer to call you that.”

The young man’s face goes thoughtful, as if it had never crossed his mind that Caiti would want to call him something besides “servant.”

“Come, what did your mother call you?” she urges.

He smiles at that. Teeth white and straight, a sharp contrast against skin smudged with dirt.

“Mogar,” he says, hitching his chin proudly.

“An Avosa name?” Caiti asks.

“Family name,” Mogar says.

“You’d prefer to speak Avosa, though?”

He pauses again, perhaps composing his thoughts.

“I can use your tongue, Caiti,” he says, “but I have practiced little. Mostly read.”

“It’s the same for me and Avosa, I’m afraid,” Caiti says.

“You spoke it like a queen in the room above,” Mogar says, smiling.

“How did you know I would understand Avosa?”

“I know very much about this kingdom,” Mogar says. “I know you are a scholar. I knew you would know my own tongue.”

“Where are you from that speaks Avosa, then?”

“Otcina,” Mogar says. “Your tongue may have another name.”

Caiti doesn’t recognize the country’s name.

“A land in the Plains, maybe? Southwest of here?” she asks.

Mogar shakes his head.

“East, far east,” he says. “Otcina is beyond Moře… “

The man starts to gesture with his hands as if searching for another word. He sighs and says “sranje” under his breath. (Caiti’s books had never outlined swearing in the dead language, but she’d be willing to wager the soft word is a curse in Avosa.)

“Like a river,” he says, making a pleading gesture with his hands. “But much bigger. To the east.”

“The sea?” Caiti says, hitching an eyebrow. Surely he couldn’t--

“The sea!” Mogar says, smiling. “Otcina is beyond Moře, the sea.”

“Mogar, no one has crossed the sea in my lifetime,” Caiti says.

 _“Caiti, of course they have,”_ he says, lapsing into excited Avosa. _“How else would I, from Otcina, know Caiti Ward, Jack Pattillo, Geoff Ramsey? Many men have crossed Moře with your story.”_

 _“My story?”_ Caiti asks, switching to Avosa.

 _“The kingdom’s story, the kingdom’s saviors,”_ Mogar says. _“The Razing, Ramsey’s Great Siege--every one of my brothers and sisters knows the songs by heart.”_

 _“I do not understand, Mogar,”_ Caiti says.

 _“Dentes Gallus may know little of the world,”_ Mogar says, _“but I tell you now: the world knows **much** of it.”_

\---

The regent stayed with him, speaking nearly until dawn. Mogar had slept well after Caiti left. It was the first time he had bedded in safety since he left his home. Mogar prayed and then rested, knowing that the gears of his fate continued to turn, even as he lay in the cell.

He wakes the next day knowing that he is not alone.

“Mogar,” Geoff says. The man is standing with patterned hands wrapped around the bars of Mogar’s cell, peering down at him. “More grunt than name, isn’t it.”

Mogar rises purposefully from the sleeping roll but does not approach the bars. His first audience with the warrior Geoff--how many times had Mogar played the scene through in his mind? Mogar had waited for this meeting. He had imagined what it would be like to finally meet the man with the marks who had saved a whole people.

“You may call me what you wish, my lord,” Mogar says. Geoff snorts.

“I’m no one’s lord,” Geoff says. “And you can keep the grunt name. It suits you.”

Mogar nods, ignoring the jab.

“I spoke to Caiti,” Geoff says. “She may be impressed by the fact that you have both read the same books about the same dead language, but I’ve seen more impressive tricks from more impressive men.”

Geoff speaks quickly and Mogar forces himself to follow, concentrating intensely. He’s glad he had the early hours of the morning to practice his English with the regent.

“I will never try to trick you, Geoff Ramsey. The regent Caiti is very kind,” Mogar says. “That is why I spoke to her first in the chamber. I know it will not be the same with you.”

“That does my heart good to hear,” Geoff says. “You can spare me your bedtime story about crossing the sea and the fantasyland of Ocktina and tell me who you are and why you’re here.”

Mogar wonders if the man mispronounces his country’s name on purpose.

“I am Mogar and I traveled from _Otcina_ \--though you do not believe me, I understand this,” Mogar says quickly, watching as Geoff holds up a hand to interrupt him. “I came here to serve the gerent Jack Pattillo, under your command. I pledge to you--”

“Do you think me blind as well as deaf?” Geoff interrupts. “You held a blade to Jack’s throat.”

“Not to do harm,” Mogar says.

“Is that how they establish friendship in Otcina, then? By way of a slit throat?”

“That was not my intent,” Mogar says calmly. “May I ask you a question, lord?”

“No, you may not,” Geoff says, frowning. “You won’t answer mine truthfully--why should I entertain yours?”

“Then instead, may I tell you something in honesty?” Mogar asks.

“Please,” Geoff says.

Mogar steps forward now, close enough to see the thorns on the rose decorating one of Geoff’s knuckles. Close enough to see the web of translucent scars that span from the man’s nose to the cartilage of his wrecked ear. The commander does not back away. Mogar watches as Geoff’s eyes flick between Mogar’s own eyes and his lips--a force of habit, Mogar realizes, as the other man waits to read his lips if necessary.

“You safeguard your gerent and patrol his halls. You want to know what weakness in protection allowed me into his chamber last night,” Mogar says.

“Clearly,” Geoff says.

“To scale the keep takes only a moment,” Mogar says.

“Yes, and each window locks secure,” Geoff counters.

“The glass itself, lord,” Mogar says.

“Is not impervious, no, but a broken window is immediately apparent,” Geoff says.

“The quarter round glass stop was easy enough to remove with a chisel,” Mogar says. “Return to his chamber and test the window furthest west in the wall.”

“So my security weakness was a damned loose wooden dowel?” Geoff asks.

Mogar nods.

“You scaled Jack’s wall and hacked at his window with a chisel while no one was looking,” Geoff says, frowning. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“No,” Mogar says. “I traveled here hoping I could find a weakness to prove myself useful. Five days in Laurus and I did so.”

Geoff steps back from the bars, rubbing a dark hand across his face.

“I fail to understand how threatening Jack’s life is useful,” Geoff says. “And I’d rather see myself hanged than continue to navigate this conversation with a lunatic. Let someone know when you’re ready to tell the truth.”

Geoff turns on his heel then. Mogar isn’t ready to end their first meeting.

“You responded like war ended yesterday,” Mogar says, his words chasing after the man and echoing in the dungeon. “You thought yourself useless, and you know now that is folly.”

Geoff stops.

“You don’t know a thing about my use,” Geoff says, turning back to Mogar and curling his mouth around the last word as if the syllable tastes sour.

“I know a warrior in peace feels useless,” Mogar says, up at the bars now, his fingers gripping the cold iron. “That is why I left the peace of Otcina--to serve the gerent. To learn from you.”

“And yet Domus is at peace,” Geoff says, cocking his head as if he were speaking to an animal or child. “Domus is at peace, and apparently the fictional land of Otcina is at peace, too. If you fancy us both warriors, I suppose that must make us both without use.”

“Not for long, my lord,” Mogar says. “This federation is rotten, and it will--”

“A linguist, a warrior, and now a soothsayer,” Geoff says, holding up three fingers. “Your qualifications are multiplying, young Mogar.”

“I’m sorry, I do not… what is a soothsayer?”

“You’re telling me you see the future,” Geoff says.

“I see what the old ways show me,” Mogar says. Something changes in Geoff’s posture then, and when he begins to speak, Mogar knows that he has made a true misstep now.

“Pardon me--one new qualification: you are a magic user, as well,” Geoff says, eyebrows hitched. “I thought it impossible that I could like you _less_ than I did at the instant I saw you with a blade to Jack’s throat--and yet here we are.”

He spits the words and turns to leave.

“I know you will reconsider, Geoff Ramsey,” Mogar says. “I won’t speak more to anyone but you.”

“Then you’ll rot down here, runt,” Geoff says as he passes the guards.

\---

Caiti is back at the cell that day with more food, clean clothes, a basin of warm water and a horsehair brush for Mogar.

He greets her warmly, telling her Geoff had come for a visit. Caiti can imagine it was more interrogation than visit, but she does not correct the man.

“I mean no disrespect, Caiti,” Mogar says, “but I’ll tell you nothing more until I speak with Geoff again.”

“That’s a pity,” Caiti says, hoping immediately that she can dissuade him of the notion. “He seemed none too talkative after his visit this morning.”

“He has an unbecoming temper,” Mogar says. “When they sing of Dentes Gallus, the bards don’t include that part.”

Caiti can’t suppress a laugh.

“You’ll have to forgive us all if you find us abrupt,” she says when she regains composure. “Your threat on Jack was a shock--and if you know a thing about Geoff, you had to know he would not take it lightly.”

“Nor should he,” Mogar says.

“Perhaps if I understood your motivation to travel here, I could speak to him on your behalf. He might would be apt, then, to continue discussion with you,” she says.

“You are generous,” Mogar says, “but I must speak to him.”

 _It was worth a try,_ she thinks.

“If you won’t tell me anything of import, perhaps you’d like to practice your English and I my Avosa? Encountering anyone but a Gallan here is rare.”

Mogar nods. She turns her back to him in the cell to give him privacy as he washes, and they speak casually then in English and Avosa. Mogar refuses to elaborate on Otcina, on his travels, on his purpose--and as he tidies himself, he simply makes small talk with Caiti.

How had she met Jack? What was her favorite area of study? What were the seasons like in Accola?

And perhaps Mogar is a bit mad, as Geoff insists. But if they ever hope to learn enough about the stranger to decide what to do with him, Caiti will need to either convince Mogar to speak to her or convince Geoff to return to the dungeon.

“I’m clad proper again,” Mogar says after a lull in conversation. “Are all prisoners in the kingdom so well fed and outfitted?”

When she turns to face him again, Caiti understands now why Geoff had continued to call him a boy. Mogar is younger than she’d realized, and with the film of dirt removed and the snarled hair tamed, his youth is much more apparent. The borrowed clothes fit him well.

“Mogar, you look like a prince,” Caiti says, smiling. His expression goes melancholy for a moment.

“So I have been told,” he says. His smile doesn’t recover. “May I ask you a question about the commander, Caiti?”

“Geoff? You may ask but I may not have an answer for you,” she says.

“The commander’s marks are enchanted, are they not?” Mogar asks.

Caiti feels the muscles of her jaw clench. This is not a topic easily broached, though the boy has no way of knowing.

“That depends on who you ask,” Caiti says after a moment. “Some believe that they are and others believe they are simply marks.”

“Believe?” Mogar asks. “Caiti, do no Gallan people pray in the old ways?”

“We pray as the Chosen Ones of the World dictate,” she says. “If anyone in the federation still uses magic, they don’t speak about it. At least not in Domus.”

“The commander lost patience when I mentioned the old ways,” Mogar says.

“Speaking of magic certainly won’t put you in his good graces,” Caiti says.

“But I had thought--because of his marks… Why else would he seek an enchantment?” Mogar asks.

“Perhaps Jack will tell you the story some time. I’m afraid it isn’t mine to share, Mogar.”

And for the first time since they began speaking, Mogar looks lost.

She can relate to the fundamental lack of understanding for this controversy, the secrecy. Caiti can remember the strange turns in conversation when she brought up magic after she arrived in Domus. The frowns it earned her. The way that Jack had inexplicably gone quiet whenever their discussions had turned towards the topic. Perhaps she could reveal a bit to Mogar, then--if only to spare grief to the Gallans who may visit him in the dungeon.

“I cannot speak for Jack or Geoff, but would you allow me to offer my own experience?” Caiti asks.

“Please,” he says.

“Remember that I too entered Domus as an outsider--a foreigner,” Caiti says. “Accola was untouched by The Razing and the war after. Magic never had a foothold in my kingdom, and so I would bring up the topic thoughtlessly. But for Jack, for Geoff--they lost their families to magic. That is understandably more than sufficient to sour most Gallans on the topic.”

“But what King Hullum did was a perversion of the old ways,” Mogar says, looking almost hurt. “The gerent and commander dismiss the nether, the whole of creation, on the actions of a few cowards?”

“Magic used to brutalize a people is still magic,” Caiti says gently. “You may find shades of truth, but the generation who fought in the Siege see only black and white.”

Mogar seems to ponder this, eyes staring steady under long lashes.

“Is it true that the commander lost four brothers to The Razing?” he asks quietly. Caiti nods.

“And three more to the war that followed,” she adds. “Parents too.”

“And the gerent?”

“A brother and sister Razed, mother and sister lost to war,” Caiti says.

She holds Mogar’s gaze and speaks plainly. If he hopes to speak to Jack and Geoff, he must know what he faces.

“It is the same in our songs,” he says.

“Jack tells me their success on the battlefield made their families into targets,” Caiti says.

“Their courage saved their people,” Mogar says, sounding almost defiant.

“Yes, and Hullum’s magic cost them their families,” Caiti says quickly. “You’ll do well to remember that speaking to any Gallan.”

Mogar nods again.

“This is a good favor,” he says. “Thank you for this, Caiti. I will be more vigilant in word when I speak of the old ways in Dentes Gallus.”

\---

Geoff tells Gavin the news of the previous evening over a late supper--water and warm wine and tureens of root stew. The barracks dining hall is louder than usual, and it’s vaguely frustrating to watch Geoff strain to hear and be heard over the noise. He speaks a little too loud in environments like this, and Gavin has never had the heart to mention it.

Every soldier seems to have friends visiting them tonight, people from the city traveling en masse to the barracks to dine. Looking to overhear news of the assassin, Gavin thinks.

The lieutenant himself had heard snippets of gossip, of course, from the men who stood guard. Word had gotten round the entire city that someone had made an attempt on their gerent’s life. Gavin hadn’t paid it much mind, though, because he knew he’d get a full report from Geoff soon enough.

“The blather this morning,” Gavin reports through a smile, “is that you spent the wee hours of the morning torturing the sinister prisoner in his cell.”

Geoff shakes his head and puffs a laugh.

“So blades, ropes, what was it?” Gavin asks. “How did you torture him, Geoff? Or did you make him listen to you talk about your maps?”

“I didn’t lay a hand on him,” Geoff says, rolling his eyes. “It was more torture on me, listening to his raving.”

They begin to eat, and the stew is savory and hot.

“I’m all for peace and justice, of course,” Geoff says. “But a part of me thinks sorting him out last night with a dagger would’ve been a better use of all our time.”

“Perhaps someone should pay him a visit in the dungeon then--end it before he wastes more of your time,” Gavin says, only half-joking. Geoff shoots him a warning look.

“Jack would never forgive me for the cruelty,” Geoff says, “even if I had nothing to do with it. So you may banish that idea, tempting as it may be.”

“Not sure I understand the wisdom in housing an assassin, though,” Gavin says.

“We’re of the same mind in that, Gavin,” Geoff says. “It makes me nervous, knowing he’s in the city.”

Gavin rolls his eyes.

“Everything makes you nervous. _Full moons_ make you nervous, Geoff. You’d build a wall to keep out sunshine if you thought it meant better protecting Jack.”

“And was I wrong?” Geoff asks, hitching an eyebrow. “Ten easy years shattered by one boy with a knife to Jack’s neck.”

“One anomaly doesn’t deliver you from being labeled a paranoid old bastard, love,” Gavin says.

Geoff grumbles fondly at that.

“A paranoid _right_ old bastard,” Geoff says. “In any case, no sneaking in the night--but if you come across him outside the walls of a dungeon cell, you’re to run him through.”

Gavin is about to point out that he has no idea what the prisoner looks like when they’re interrupted.

It’s Caiti. She pulls up a chair to their small table, deposits a satchel on the floor, and sets down her own tureen of stew. Caiti sits before either man can stand--and Gavin relents, knowing she’s always hated the impulse towards formality.

“Good evening,” she says, smiling pleasantly.

“A diplomat in the barracks,” Gavin says through a grin. “To what do we owe this rare company, regent?”

“I’m here for the stimulating conversation and fine cuisine,” she says. Geoff scoffs, and the statement earns her a laugh from Gavin.

“Now that’s a heady lie,” Gavin says, “though the fare isn’t half bad tonight.”

“You’re here to talk about the madman, just like everyone else swelling our ranks tonight,” Geoff says, sweeping his eyes across the crowded room.

“Yes, you’ve found me out,” she says. Caiti’s expression doesn’t change and she blows cool air across a spoonful of food.

“So has he grown tired of the dungeon yet?” Geoff asks. “Admitted he’s just a pickpocket from Novi, or maybe a Kinpast pauper?”

“In fact he has not,” Caiti says. “And I’m sad to report that he’s decided he only wants to speak to you from now on.”

“He told me as much this morning,” Geoff says.

“ _You_?” Gavin asks. “The people of Laurus at his fingertips and he only wants to speak with the worst conversationalist in the hearth, Caiti? Surely he _is_ mad then.”

“Watch it, whelp,” Geoff says through a smile. And then to Caiti: “I’ve nothing more to say to him, and his babbling doesn’t move me. We stand to gain nothing by giving into the demands of a lunatic.”

“You must speak to Mogar, Geoff,” Caiti says, firm.

“ _Mogar_?” Gavin says, incredulous. “Bloody Mogar. Is that his name?”

“It’s what he calls himself, at least,” Geoff says. “Diplomat or not, Caiti, there’s nothing you can threaten me with to press me to the dungeon a second time.”

“Threaten you, Geoff?” she asks between mouthfuls of stew. “If I opened negotiations with threats, I’d be a poor diplomat indeed.”

“You and Jack have seen to it that I’ve been afforded every necessity and denied no pleasure,” Geoff says. “There’s nothing you could tempt me with, either.”

“Yes, I thought the same for the better part of the day,” Caiti says. She stoops then, reaching into her satchel under the table and producing a small hourglass. Caiti sets in at the center of the table. “I’ve come to propose a trade of time.”

“I don’t understand,” Geoff says.

“I tried to remember, through the history of knowing you, if I’d ever seen you denied a desire,” Caiti says. “The only occurrence was so long ago that I’d almost forgotten.”

“I’ve forgotten entirely,” Geoff admits.

“Probably drunk, I’d wager,” Gavin says. Caiti snorts softly and Geoff does nothing to deny it.

“The first year you knew me, Geoff, you insisted for a period that I become proficient with a weapon,” she says. “As you know I had no interest.”

“Ah, now that I do remember,” Geoff says. “As I recall, you were too busy solving the woes of the world to concern yourself with an interest as frivolous as not dying.”

“Well, I have found a sudden interest,” Caiti says with a smile.

“And what’s this?” Geoff says, gesturing to the hourglass. Caiti reaches and upends it, pale sand pouring immediately from the top chamber to the bottom.

“Fifteen minutes,” Caiti says. “For every fifteen minutes you spend with Mogar, I will trade you twice that in weapons training--or whatever training you’d have me do.”

There is a long pause of consideration, and Gavin looks from Geoff’s face to Caiti’s. Her fine features are composed without being smug. Neutral and pleasant.

“You can’t learn to wield a blade in a half hour’s time,” Geoff says, finally. It’s a concession.

“Then perhaps you’ll spend more than fifteen minutes speaking to Mogar,” Caiti says.

“Even then, I’d need a better return on the investment of my time,” Geoff says.

“Then multiply your minutes with Mogar into three times that in training me,” Caiti offers.

“Quadruple,” Geoff says, firmly. “Fifteen minutes suffering a madman buys me an hour enriching a regent.”

“Agreed,” Caiti says quickly. She screws her face up then and for a moment Gavin thinks she must have gotten a bite of grit in the stew. But instead she lifts a hand to her face and spits into her palm.

She offers the palm to Geoff and Gavin can’t suppress a laugh at the shocked face the man makes. Geoff rights himself after a moment though, sighing and shaking his head before spitting neatly into his own hand and shaking with the regent.

“You’ve spent too long among Gallans without a trip home if you’re this comfortable sealing a deal in spittle,” Geoff says, their hands still clasped.

“Dentes Gallus is my home, Geoff,” she says through a broad smile. “Let me know when our lessons will begin.”

 

 


End file.
